Blizzard puts original WoW director Chris Metzen back in the saddle to lead Warcraft's "next generation of adventures"

Original World of Warcraft creative director Chris Metzen returned to Blizzard as Warcraft creative advisor last December, and now he's been promoted to executive creative director for the series and will help shape "the next generation of adventures."

An announcement from the official World of Warcraft Twitter account reads: "We are excited to share that Chris Metzen has taken on a full-time role as executive creative director of the Warcraft universe. Right now, his main focus is supporting our World of Warcraft leadership in crafting the next generation of adventures."

Metzen first joined Blizzard as an artist back in 1994 just as the Warcraft universe was starting to take form, and he went on to design the story for Warcraft 2 and lead development on Warcraft 3 as creative director. He also played a key role in creating the Diablo universe as a writer and served as lead designer on Starcraft. Before retiring in 2016, he had served as Blizzard's vice president of creative development for seven years, playing an instrumental role in the creative direction of Blizzard's biggest franchises.

Now, as Warcraft's executive creative director, he'll have a massive influence not only on World of Warcraft, but based on the language in today's announcement, the Warcraft franchise more broadly. Although, as Blizzard notes, his primary responsibility at the moment is heading up World of Warcraft's future.

We don't know exactly what Metzen is cooking up at the moment, but Blizzard says he'll be at this year's BlizzCon to reveal some cool stuff.

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